Ralph Nader warned about derivatives

It was way back in the mid-1990s, I think, that I went to listen to Ralph Nader. This was in California--in LA. I had expected him to talk in the language of us mortals about corporations, environment, labor, .... Instead, he went all technical and it felt like I was in a graduate-level economics course. His focus was on derivatives and how they were being abused by Wall Street financial experts. The audience, not too large to begin with, almost fell asleep. But, it turns out that, as always, Nader was on target.
Unfortunately for him and for us, nobody paid any attention to Nader.
Then Enron happened. And even then nobody paid attention to the complexities in derivatives that these MBAs were concocting. The traders, on the other hand, started coming up with even more crazy schemes to essentially gamble with other people's money.
When Bear Sterns tanked last March--six months ago--that apparently still didn't wake up those who were supposed to safeguard the "public interest."
Oh well .... I guess I should feel better that if Congress passes a 700-billion dollar bailout, I will literally own a share of America's real estate--more than my own home that we pay for with blood, sweat, and tears!

9/26 update: Nader has a terrific commentary at Cockburn's Counterpunch. His postscript there is something that the "investor nation" should pay attention to:

Shareholders also have some work to do. They should have listened when Warren Buffett called securities derivatives a "time bomb" and "financial weapons of mass destruction.” The Wall Street crooks and unscrupulous speculators use and draining of “other people’s money” out of pension funds and mutual funds should motivate painfully passive shareholders to organize to gain greater authority to control the companies they own. Where is the shareholder uprising?